Saturday, 1 August 2015

While the scope of female participation in the atrocities of the Khmer Rouge is unknown, experts say it is understated
At 14, Tuy Kin was barely a young woman when she joined the Khmer Rouge in 1970.
Ten years later, she was arrested for her involvement in the killing
of 300 prisoners at Phnom Penh’s infamous S-21 prison and torture centre
– a charge she now denies – and jailed for 18 months.
“Although I served as a soldier of Pol Pot, I never killed people,”
she told researchers from the Documentary Center of Cambodia (DC-Cam).
It’s unknown how many female cadres like Kin filled the ranks of the
ultra-Maoist regime and how big a role they had; however, for the first
time, a new research project is trying to shed light on the subject.

For the past six years, a Taiwanese NGO has been offering
unusual aid – building facilities for villages too poor to effectively
cremate their dead
While many NGOs in the Kingdom focus on improving poor Cambodians’ lives, one organisation is trying to improve their deaths.
The Field Relief Agency, a humanitarian organisation founded in 1995
by a Taiwanese flight attendant turned philanthropist named Yang
Wei-lin, constructs crematoriums in rural communities.
According to Wei-lin, the need was grimly obvious.

Phnom
Penh (Khmer Times) – To succeed in its negotiations with Vietnam over
the demarcation of the border, Cambodia should shame its neighbor
because the country needs international support to settle its dispute
with China, Sam Rainsy, president of the opposition Cambodia National
Rescue Party, wrote on his Facebook Page yesterday.

“Any
country that violates Cambodia’s territorial integrity would be
seriously condemned by the international community. In particular
Vietnam would suffer such an embarrassing condemnation at a time when
she needs international support in her confrontation with China in the
South China Sea,” he wrote under a statement titled “Vietnam must
respect the 1991 Paris Agreements on Cambodia.”

Friday, 31 July 2015

Campaigners say that deforestation in Cambodia is taking place on a large scale

Ancient,
highly valuable forests are being lost at an "unprecedented" rate from
protected lands in Cambodia, according to a new report.

The
analysis, from campaign group Forest Trends, says that large
corporations are using legitimate development permits to illegally clear
land.
Around 2,000 sq km of forests are being lost every year, they say.
Effective governance of the forests in Cambodia has broken down, they argue.

We are basically setting up these 'cancer cells' in the best forest areas and this is getting out of handMarcus Hardtke, Forestry expert

Khim Vat was 29 when the Khmer Rouge regime fell. She was
loaded into a military truck at the Kampong Chhnang airport worksite
that day, alongside pregnant women and children, and heard the sound of
gunshots as the vehicle fled to the west.
During the second portion of her testimony before the Khmer Rouge
tribunal yesterday, Vat, a former member of the communist militia,
recalled the chaos of the Vietnamese invasion.

Cambodia has rebuked the United Nations after a UN office
released a statement admonishing recent political developments in the
Kingdom, while an opposition lawmaker is making a last-minute attempt to
stop one of those developments from becoming law.
Last Friday, the Senate passed a draft NGO law that was viewed by
rights groups as muzzling the sector, while on July 21, 11 opposition
Cambodia National Rescue Party activists were sentenced to prison terms
of seven to 20 years for a street protest that turned violent a year
ago.
The Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) lambasted both events on Monday.

Cambodia’s population is expected to grow by 22 per cent to
almost 19 million by 2030, while infant mortality is slated to decrease
and life expectancy to increase, according to a UN report released on
Wednesday.
In the newly published 2015 Revision of World Population Prospects
by the UN’s Department of Economic and Social Affairs (DESA), the
Kingdom’s population is set to increase from its current 15,578,000
count in 2015 to 18,991,000 in 2030.

Cambodia's defence minister lauded a decade of corporate
sponsorship of the country’s military, which he said had enabled
underfunded units to acquire weapons with the backing of affluent
supporters.
Prime Minister Hun Sen’s policy on the relationship between
Cambodia’s powerful tycoons – known as oknhas – and the armed forces and
government departments was formalised in a sub-decree passed in
February 2010, and has been roundly condemned by rights groups ever
since.

The Ministry of Interior is planning to launch a $30 million
radio and television station with backing from a Chinese company, with
testing set to start right around the time the opposition party’s new
station is slated to begin broadcasting.
Speaking after a signing ceremony, Interior Minister Sar Kheng said
that Interior TV and its radio counterpart will serve the public
interest.
“The location of the radio and TV will perhaps be on the outskirts of
the city, while spending will be approximately $30 million,” he said.

Cambodis's most crucial forests are disappearing at a rate of
more than 2,000 square kilometres a year, as agricultural firms continue
to harvest timber by illegal means in protected areas and national
parks, according to a study from Washington-based Forest Trends.
The report, released yesterday evening, uses satellite imagery to
link “the growing number of industrial agricultural development projects
to the escalating destruction of Cambodian forests”.

Continuing efforts by the Department of Immigration yesterday
resulted in the detention of 50 Vietnamese construction workers and a
warning of future fines issued to their employer.
Uk Hai Seila, investigation chief for the Department of Immigration,
said that following a warning letter, authorities will resort to legal
measures including fines for companies large or small found to be
employing illegal immigrants.
“Currently, we are in a grace period, after finding a violation we
file a warning letter, but if [illegal workers] are discovered a second
time then the company’s owner will be fined and face charges in court,”
he said.

Chea Dara delivers a speech at the Peace Palace in Phnom Penh, July 29, 2015.

RFA

Cambodia’s armed forces belong to the country’s ruling party and
must prevent a “color revolution” from overtaking the Southeast Asian
nation, a four-star general said Wednesday, drawing criticism from an
opposition official who called his understanding of the military’s role
“limited.”

The armed forces must serve Prime Minister Hun Sen’s
ruling Cambodian People’s Party (CPP) because he cares for and leads
them, General Chea Dara told military commanders, government officials
and members of the private sector outside of Hun Sen’s office in the
capital Phnom Penh, known as the Peace Palace.

Wednesday, 29 July 2015

PHNOM
PENH (Khmer Times) – Artist Ung Bun Heang survived years of war in his
home country of Cambodia, only to be exiled for his scathing political
caricatures. An inside look at his life and his work was captured in the
film, “Straddling Two Worlds,” screening at Meta House tonight.

Mr.
Heang loved his country but refused to gloss over its problems. Under
the pen name “Sacrava,” he used cartoons to critique the government and
political parties. Until his death in 2014, he continued to hope that
the youth of Cambodia would be free to speak about the problems he could
only critique after his exile.

Bloody Ink

Mr.
Bun Heang grew up among five siblings in a wealthy household and was
encouraged to speak his mind as a child. Studying at the Royal
University of Fine Arts, he began his career as a cartoonist at the
newspaper Nokor Thom. He continued working at local publications even
throughout the beginning of the turbulent war years.

In April 1975, the Khmer Rouge forced him to put down his pen and spend the next three years working as a manual laborer.

Echoing remarks by Prime Minister Hun Sen last week, Minister
of Defence Tea Banh called on the military yesterday to be ready to
suppress any attempt at a “colour revolution”, telling soldiers that
agitators were fomenting such a revolution at that very moment.
Speaking at a ceremony marking the completion of training at a
Kampong Speu military base, Banh warned cadets that the political
situation in the country was rapidly changing, and that without caution,
a revolution could break out at any time.

Several of the more contentious points from Cambodia’s draft
trade union law have been dropped, a pro-government union leader said
yesterday, although at least one major union remains unsatisfied with
the pending legislation.
Minister of Labour Ith Sam Heng told reporters yesterday that the law
was “90 per cent” complete and would be sent to the Council of
Ministers next month.

The government has declared leases on plantations will be
limited to 50 years, slashing the length of some existing concessions in
half, though neither ministry responsible for overseeing the move would
confirm the legal basis for doing so.
The decision was announced in a press release issued by the Ministry
of Environment yesterday, with its chief of cabinet, Srun Darith, saying
the policy would be implemented on new and already- existing economic
land concessions (ELCs).
“Most of the existing ELC companies have no contract. For those companies with contracts, they will be reviewed,” he said.

An activist with Cambodia’s opposition party on Tuesday accused a
former senior official with the country’s intelligence organization of
making death threats against him, causing him to fear for his life, and
has called on local authorities and civil society groups to investigate
the incident.

Rom Sarorn, an activist with the opposition
Cambodia National Rescue Party (CNRP) in Battambang province’s Banan
district, said he was attacked by the former deputy commander of
Division 52 in charge of Cambodia’s intelligence agency, Phon Sophaon,
on July 26 as the two discussed politics at a local café.

Tuesday, 28 July 2015

Paris,
Geneva, Phnom Penh, July 28, 2015 – Cambodia’s Constitutional Council
must reject the numerous provisions of the Law on Associations and
Non-Governmental Organizations (LANGO) that run counter to the country’s
Charter, the Observatory for the Protection of Human Rights Defenders
said today.
The Constitutional Council is expected to review the LANGO by the end
of July. Cambodia’s Constitution empowers the Council to rule on the
constitutionality of laws adopted by Parliament. According to Article
142 of the Charter, provisions of legislation passed by Parliament that
the Constitutional Council finds unconstitutional “shall not be
promulgated or implemented.”“The Constitutional Council must uphold its role of
guardian of the Constitution and reject the numerous provisions of the
LANGO that contradict key constitutional principles,” said FIDH President Karim Lahidji.

PHNOM
PENH (Khmer Times) – Facing suspension from his seat in the National
Assembly for criticizing its president on Facebook two weeks ago,
Cambodia National Rescue Party (CNRP) lawmaker Um Sam An has apologized
for the comments and asked for forgiveness.

“I
have used impolite language about Samdech president on social media
affecting the reputation of Samdech president,” Mr. Sam An wrote in his
letter to National Assembly President Heng Samrin. “My impolite behavior
and words have affected the prestige of the National Assembly as well
as the reputation of Samdech president,” he continued.

“Please Samdech president forgive me accordingly,” he requested in the July 24 letter.

Interviewed
about the letter over the weekend, Mr. Sam An said he was trying to
prevent the dispute from escalating. “It might never end,” he explained.

Last
week, Cambodia’s foreign minister Hor Namhong suggested that Cambodia
would continue to seek to be a mediator in South China Sea disputes
between China and the claimant states in the Association of Southeast
Asian Nations (ASEAN).
“Cambodia wants to mediate in order to reduce the tense atmosphere
between ASEAN and China because we discern that no solution can be found
without talking to each other,” Hor Namhong said according toVoice of America.
For those who follow developments in the South China Sea and
Southeast Asia closely, the suggestion of Cambodia as a mediator in the
disputes is a rather curious one. True, the country is not

Prime Minister Hun Sen yesterday poured cold water on the
prospect of negotiating the release of 11 imprisoned opposition
activists, hours after the Cambodia National Rescue Party’s deputy
president visited the group and suggested the two parties would
compromise through “the culture of dialogue”.
CNRP acting president Kem Sokha predicted the men – including US
citizen Meach Sovannara – who were sentenced to between seven and 20
years in prison for “insurrection” over a protest turned violent in
Phnom Penh last July, would be released “soon”.
Speaking outside Prey Sar prison after visiting the group, Sokha said
they had strong grounds for appeal, given most were not legally
represented during the verdict.

Three factory workers shot more than three years ago by a town
governor who remains at large have come to Phnom Penh to ask Prime
Minister Hun Sen to take action in their case, given the recent success
of the premier’s call to arrest a property tycoon for beating up a TV
star.
On February 20, 2012, during a protest at the Kaoway shoe factory in
Svay Rieng province, then Bavet town governor Chhouk Bandith shot into
the crowd numerous times with a pistol, injuring the three female
workers.

Amid a recent string of heated exchanges and tense standoffs
along sections of the Cambodia-Vietnam border, a state media outlet in
Vietnam joined the chorus of coverage with a conciliatory, yet critical,
propaganda article that has analysts and academics attempting to read
between the lines.
Titled "The inseparable ties of villagers along Vietnam-Cambodia border", the piece was published on Sunday by state newspaper Tuoi Tre.
The article draws on the similarities between the neighbouring
communities while characterising them as “victims” of the opposition
Cambodia National Rescue Party, the party whose members earlier this
month led 2,000 Cambodians at a rally near the border in Svay Rieng
province over alleged Vietnamese encroachment.

The Royal Palace has denied a report that King Norodom Sihamoni
will meet with leaders of the ruling and opposition parties over the
ongoing dispute on the Cambodian-Vietnamese border.
“The Royal Palace would like to announce to the public that King
Norodom Sihamoni has not mentioned [this] and there is no plan to summon
leaders of the three political parties for discussion about border
issues,” a press statement from the Royal Palace today reads.
On Saturday, Prince Norodom Ranariddh, a former prime minister and
head of the royalist Funcinpec

Cambodia has slammed the United States for attempting to
“destroy security and harmony” in the country after the US Embassy
released a statement expressing concern over the jailing of 11
opposition party activists last Tuesday.
The Cambodia National Rescue Party activists, who include US citizen
Meach Sovannara, were handed seven- to 20-year prison terms on
insurrection charges filed over a year-old protest.
The protest turned into a street fight in which 39 people, mostly security officers, were injured.
On Saturday, the US Embassy released a press statement saying it was troubled by the sentences, viewed by many as overly harsh.

Cambodian
security officials detain people wearing prisoner uniforms as they
gather in front of the National Assembly building in Phnom Penh
yesterday during a protest against the controversial NGO law. AFP

Six people sporting fake prison uniforms attempted to stage a
protest at the National Assembly to express their opposition to the
highly criticised NGO law, only to be arrested by a contingent of
security personnel and detained for over nine hours before being
released yesterday evening.
The group included Meas Leakhena, from the CNRP Women’s Movement, and
five members of the Khmer Youth Empire and the Cambodian Student
Intellectual League Association: Chum Huor, Chum Huort, Muong Sony,
Suong Vesna and Soeun Piseth.

In the wake of his 15-session suspension from parliament for
“insulting” National Assembly President Heng Samrin, opposition lawmaker
Um Sam An has defended criticism he posted on social media while
expressing regret over his choice of words.
Cambodia National Rescue Party (CNRP) representative Sam An received
the punishment – which also included having his parliamentary salary
halved for two months – in an order signed by Samrin on Thursday,
following a July 14 post by Sam An on Facebook criticising Samrin.

Sunday, 26 July 2015

Free
loaders: Thousands are said to be playing the ghost game in Cambodia
with many rarely showing up for work at the National Assembly. — Reuters

PHNOM PENH: Borith has been on the
payroll of Cambodia’s parliament for 15 years, but rarely shows up for
work. He is busy with his other job at a non-governmental organisation,
and no one notices his absence.
It’s a cushy deal that’s common in
Cambodia. Ghost workers are haunting its civil service, sapping
taxpayers’ money with jobs they don’t actually do, or by pocketing
salaries paid to people who don’t even exist.
“There are just
names of people who work at the National Assembly, but there’s no work
to do,” said Borith, who declined to be identified by his full name to
avoid jeopardising his US$300 (RM1,140) a month parliament salary.